Author draws 100 to Ringwood lecture on easy-care gardens

By LINDA MOSS

staff writer |

The Record

RINGWOOD — Kerry Ann Mendez, a nationally known gardening expert and author, came to North Jersey on Sunday to tell aging baby boomers, apartment dwellers and busy young professionals how they can create luscious gardens with minimal muss and fuss, minus pain and strain.

chris pedota / staff photographer

Attendees take a walk through the perennial garden at Skylands Manor on Sunday.

Mendez, an advocate of low-maintenance perennial gardening and landscaping, lectured to a standing-room only audience at the New Jersey Botanical Garden at Skylands in Ringwood State Park. More than 100 people, some traveling from as far away as Colts Neck, came to hear Mendez’s design tips for creating “knock-out, easy-care” gardens.

chris pedota / staff photographer

Perennials expert Kerry Mendez answers questions from audience members after her discussion.

Mendez, a self-taught gardener, left a career in higher education to pursue her passion, gardening, full time with her own consulting and design business, Perennially Yours, in Kennebunk, Maine. The 57-year-old spent 18 years as associate dean of admissions at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., before following her bliss by making a new career of educating the public about gardening.

Mendez has already written two books that have won her fans, and her talk this weekend, as well as her future book, deal with low-maintenance gardening tips and incorporating sustainable practices into gardening.

Mendez, manager of Eastabrook’s Nursery in Maine, said that garden centers are addressing the demographic reality that people 50 and older may not be able to commit as much effort to gardening as they used to, especially physically.

Such people “just don’t have the same amount of time, or it’s too much for them,” said Mendez, who herself has arthritis.

Mendez talked to the audience about plants and flowers that require less maintenance — in terms of water and cutting back, for example.

The trend is “organic and sustainable: less water use, less fertilizer, and certainly less time and effort on our part,” Mendez said.

Her new book, due for release next March, is tentatively called “The Downsized Garden: Exceptional, Low-Maintenance Plants and Design Solutions for Aging Time-Pressed Gardeners.”

“Fifties and up is really who this publisher wants to reach,” Mendez said.

Her message resonated with Kathleen Corless, a 67-year-old Oradell resident, who was at the Ringwood lecture.

“My goal is her goal: Less maintenance,” Corless said. “I’m going to focus more on the drought-tolerant plants … I think it’s better on the environment.”

Mendez said her aim in the coming book is to present shortcuts so it takes 50 percent less time to maintain a garden and to offer “design solutions so you get more impact from fewer plants just by the way you’re designing.” That advice can also assist young professionals who want gardens, but are too busy to devote a lot of time to them, Mendez said.

Gardening trends include raising more edible plants and growing compact plants that can thrive in containers, for deck gardening. Container plants are good options for apartment or condo dwellers, or for those who can’t bend down to tend to flowers and shrubs, Mendez said.

Corless has heard Mendez speak several times at the Philadelphia Flower Show, and Sunday she purchased two of her books, “The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists” and “Top Ten Lists for Beautiful Shade Gardens.” Mendez spent time after her lecture autographing books and answering questions from audience members, like Doug Chucka, 53, Franklin Lakes, and Barbara Klein, 53, Ringwood.

Chucka asked Mendez about landscaping Klein’s property.

“You look at it from up above, and the property slopes down,” he said. “Would you plant taller things down at the bottom, get shorter as you come up the slope?”

Mendez said she would need to see the site, but suggested Klein plant “something with a bright color, because a darker blue or purple is going to fade at that distance.”

Lloyd Williams, 52, of Oradell, came with his wife to Mendez’s talk. They have a fairly big garden. “It’s on an incline and its shaded,” he said, “so it’s difficult to plot things, so it’s good to come to these types of talks and get advice.”

Tina Gehrig, 45, of Hawthorne, attended with her boyfriend.

“We just thought it was something we’d be interested in,” Gehrig said. “My boyfriend wants to do some more gardening around the house. I always liked gardening, but I didn’t have a house.”

Author draws 100 to Ringwood lecture on easy-care gardens

Attendees take a walk through the perennial garden at Skylands Manor on Sunday.

By LINDA MOSS

staff writer |

The Record

RINGWOOD — Kerry Ann Mendez, a nationally known gardening expert and author, came to North Jersey on Sunday to tell aging baby boomers, apartment dwellers and busy young professionals how they can create luscious gardens with minimal muss and fuss, minus pain and strain.

Mendez, an advocate of low-maintenance perennial gardening and landscaping, lectured to a standing-room only audience at the New Jersey Botanical Garden at Skylands in Ringwood State Park. More than 100 people, some traveling from as far away as Colts Neck, came to hear Mendez’s design tips for creating “knock-out, easy-care” gardens.

Perennials expert Kerry Mendez answers questions from audience members after her discussion.

Mendez, a self-taught gardener, left a career in higher education to pursue her passion, gardening, full time with her own consulting and design business, Perennially Yours, in Kennebunk, Maine. The 57-year-old spent 18 years as associate dean of admissions at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., before following her bliss by making a new career of educating the public about gardening.

Mendez has already written two books that have won her fans, and her talk this weekend, as well as her future book, deal with low-maintenance gardening tips and incorporating sustainable practices into gardening.

Mendez, manager of Eastabrook’s Nursery in Maine, said that garden centers are addressing the demographic reality that people 50 and older may not be able to commit as much effort to gardening as they used to, especially physically.

Such people “just don’t have the same amount of time, or it’s too much for them,” said Mendez, who herself has arthritis.

Mendez talked to the audience about plants and flowers that require less maintenance — in terms of water and cutting back, for example.

The trend is “organic and sustainable: less water use, less fertilizer, and certainly less time and effort on our part,” Mendez said.

Her new book, due for release next March, is tentatively called “The Downsized Garden: Exceptional, Low-Maintenance Plants and Design Solutions for Aging Time-Pressed Gardeners.”

“Fifties and up is really who this publisher wants to reach,” Mendez said.

Her message resonated with Kathleen Corless, a 67-year-old Oradell resident, who was at the Ringwood lecture.

“My goal is her goal: Less maintenance,” Corless said. “I’m going to focus more on the drought-tolerant plants … I think it’s better on the environment.”

Mendez said her aim in the coming book is to present shortcuts so it takes 50 percent less time to maintain a garden and to offer “design solutions so you get more impact from fewer plants just by the way you’re designing.” That advice can also assist young professionals who want gardens, but are too busy to devote a lot of time to them, Mendez said.

Gardening trends include raising more edible plants and growing compact plants that can thrive in containers, for deck gardening. Container plants are good options for apartment or condo dwellers, or for those who can’t bend down to tend to flowers and shrubs, Mendez said.

Corless has heard Mendez speak several times at the Philadelphia Flower Show, and Sunday she purchased two of her books, “The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists” and “Top Ten Lists for Beautiful Shade Gardens.” Mendez spent time after her lecture autographing books and answering questions from audience members, like Doug Chucka, 53, Franklin Lakes, and Barbara Klein, 53, Ringwood.

Chucka asked Mendez about landscaping Klein’s property.

“You look at it from up above, and the property slopes down,” he said. “Would you plant taller things down at the bottom, get shorter as you come up the slope?”

Mendez said she would need to see the site, but suggested Klein plant “something with a bright color, because a darker blue or purple is going to fade at that distance.”

Lloyd Williams, 52, of Oradell, came with his wife to Mendez’s talk. They have a fairly big garden. “It’s on an incline and its shaded,” he said, “so it’s difficult to plot things, so it’s good to come to these types of talks and get advice.”

Tina Gehrig, 45, of Hawthorne, attended with her boyfriend.

“We just thought it was something we’d be interested in,” Gehrig said. “My boyfriend wants to do some more gardening around the house. I always liked gardening, but I didn’t have a house.”